I see where the BookManne is letting his slimy side show by resorting to sleazy and slanderous slippery-slope snake-in-the-grass stuff over on the bizarre Chongo Advice thread. I mean really, Rapp, if I mean that much to you, man up and get it said up front, pal. I'm easy to talk to.

Amos? What are you going on about? Are you okay or off your meds again? Are you getting enough sleep or must Mom hold you in her arms and rock you, all the while crooning "The Ballad of One-Ball Reilly" as she has in the past?

The person who asked me to ask Chongo is named Antonio G. (I'm not authorized to give you his last name) and he lives in Malibu. I posted it as he sent it to me, signature and all.

Amos, yours is not the only name that begins with the letter "A". Even my middle name begins with that letter. My brother's first name does. My late Aunt Annie's first name did. So did Adam's name. The names of Abraham Lincoln, Asa Mercer, Al Capp, Alphonse Capone, Annie Oakley, Albert of Sax-Coberg-Gotha, Alexander the Great. The letter "A" has a pedigree nearly as vast as the letter "M" -- but it can mean more than "Amos."

She has a problem with using the word "god"? Why doesn't she just redefine it in a way that suits her? After all, that's what everyone else has been doing ever since that word came into use! ;-) And why assume that your definition is the only one? Maybe "God" doesn't even vaguely resemble whatever it is that comes into her mind when she hears the word "god". If so, her resistance to the concept would be rendered meaningless. It's like many other words, it can mean a hundred different things. Consider the word "fuck", for example, which also can mean a hundred different things from the best to the worst, depending on tone of voice, intention, company, and context. Does she avoid use of that word also?

Yeah, yeah, BookManne; you believe that dexterous denial and determined disingenuousness with your disarming but dysfunctionally dreary misdirections will make you somehow transparent? Ain't gonna happen, bud. Ya gots to own your own shit in this here jungle.

So help me! is often considered sufficient among the American middle class: "Boy, you put them socks and things away RAHT NOW or so help me!", for example. It leaves the Powers that are the Source of All Help undefined and personal, like. Good idea, American ingenuity at play.

Yay, Stilly! I'm so glad you bagged the big 'un! I just walked in the door from our annual ski trip to Harriman state park. This time we lived in luxury and did not stay in the canvas-sided yurt. I was surprised, though, that the boys all thought about the non-electricity, unplumbed yurt days with nostalgia. We may go back to roughing it next year, but this year some other group had gone and hogged the spots. Beautiful blue sky, crisp air, snow covered trees, and swans on the misty river. It was perfect.

The listeners each have their own interpretation of what their god is - that's what they hear and assume I mean - and I've never been sworn in using that word, always simply choosing to affirm that what I say is true. Why play their game if you don't believe in it?

Well, it's a traditional form, that's all, and we all participate in a great many traditional forms that we don't necessarily believe in every single detail of...but as long as we believe in the basic objective of the tradition itself, we do it. I take it you do believe in the basic objective of the presidential oath?

During my 10 years in American public schools, I did not participate (as everyone was required to) in the daily reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. That is, I outwardly appeared to be participating...no point in openly fighting that war with the whole apparatus all around me at the time, it would have been foolish to do so...but I mumbled and didn't actually say the required words. This was because I had no allegiance to the American flag, none whatsoever, and I wasn't about to say I did. I did not believe in the basic objective of the ceremony....since I was not an American citizen, and I was missing my own country and wishing I was back there.

I was also an atheist at the time, but I didn't feel bothered by the mention of "God" in traditional speech forms such as "God knows" or "So help me God". I took them as common customs, not statements of categorical belief in a deity. Anyway, people mostly use the word "God" in such phrases simply to add emphasis to what they are saying.

I always wondered why anyone would call out 'Oh God!" during sex. I used to call out "Oh Cindy!" or "Oh Cathy!" or "Oh Debbie!" or.... my favourite was "Oh Maryse... oh Maryse... OH MY GOD MARYSE!!!!" I guess I am kinda guilty of it too. Shoulda married Maryse. On a scale of one to God Damn! she was an eleven.

According to the Historical Archive of American School Surveillance Cameras department of the Smithsonian, Little Hawk is on record as actually mumbling the lyrics of Positively Fourth Street during his class' Pledge. The only reason he wasn't busted for it is that his home-room teacher, Mister Alsop, was a secret commie pinko faggot hippie bastard and let him get away with it.

One does not use different sized fonts during sex. There is no "Times", "Palatino", "Courier", or "Comic Sans" version of sex. In fact, sex as humans perform it is not written in any form. Lots of stuff gets written ABOUT it, but that happens later. I thought you would like to know, as you expand your base of information about the human species.

That's good of you, Amos. ;-) Yes, I do find humans quite strange, no question about that. I have hopes for them, though, because I've seen a few good ones. Near the top of the list is my Junior High teacher, Mr Alsop, a dedicated leftist who opposed the War in Vietnam vigorously, fought for civil rights, turned a blind eye to my rejection of the Pledge of Allegiance, and never bought any of the government's crap about the supposed Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

A true hero, that man was. One fit to stand beside George Washington, Che Guevara, Emiliano Zapata, and Simon Bolivar.

I don't play that game, Little Hawk. I live in Texas where they presume you believe in all of that shit if you play along. I stay seated during the prayer(! they have NO concept of separating church and state at municipal meetings down here). I stand quietly (sometimes) during the pledge of allegiance. No, I see no purpose in the various oaths, but if you had to do it to get the job then you had to minimize the damage as much as possible.

I respect your position on that, Stilly. But you're an adult now. Keep in mind that I was just a kid in school, aged 10-18, and consider the pressures a young person is under from the school system and his own peer group (which is the worst thing of all). I was already catching plenty of harassment from certain students just for not being an American citizen...I wasn't about to add to my daily troubles by openly refusing to stand for their Pledge of Allegiance.

My most earnest wish in those days was just to be left alone.

If it were now, when I'm an adult under my own jurisdiction, well, I'm not going to engage in any ceremonials if I don't want to.

This thing about the separation of church and state, though...well, I think that's pretty sensible...but I don't think it has anything to do with God! And here's what I mean about that. The churches don't own God. They don't have jurisdiction over God at all. Some of them might act like they think they do, but they don't...they just talk about God as best they can manage it through a certain framework and tradition.

If God exists, however...if God exists at all...just consider that hypothetically for a moment if you will...

If so, no one here has any jurisdiction over God, but God is intimately connected with everything and everyone. By definition. Because God is analagous to the Infinite, the Eternal, the Universal, the Omnipresent...and nothing stands apart from the Infinite, the Eternal, the Omnipresent, and the Universal. You can't separate anything from God.

Yes, you can separate the government from the churches...just like you can separate one big fish from several other smaller fish, but God is the ocean ALL the fish swim in and the fish are themselves part OF that ocean.

Therefore, since it is absolutely impossible for the government or anything else to be separate from God (as I understand God), I have no problem with God being mentioned in some connection with various occurrences in the government...or the courts...or city hall...etc. It would be like a fish mentioning the ocean...or swearing by the ocean when making an oath.

And I still am fine with separating church and state. God is a matter much larger than state, much larger than churches, and much larger than religions, because God is all of it, and they are just small parts of it. They are partial viewpoints of reality. God is the entirety of reality.

So I have no problem with someone saying "So help me, God" in a ceremony, because to me that has absolutely nothing to do with church. It has to do with the entire enormous ocean of life that we are all swimming in, and there's no way to not be in that ocean. If you exist at all, you're in it, you're part of it, it's in touch with you.

This does not require belonging to ANY church or religion. It requires recognizing the fact that you're part of a reality that includes all of life as we know it....and goes well beyond what we know of it as well.

I didn't get that from the churches. What I got was the awareness that they are all attempting to grasp it and relate to it, in their own particular way, given whatever traditional framework they are accustomed to. They're all trying to grasp the same vital thing: Life itself, its meaning, and its highest and best purposes.

Governments, if they are at all good governments, are trying in their own way to grasp the very same thing. And so are philosophers, teachers, and students. We all wish to understand our lives in the best way possible, because life is a sacred thing. It is the Holy of Holies.

LH, I make a few of them like that every now and then so they can set a good example for others. Sometimes it takes with just a few others and that cheers Me up and gives Me hope.

The Monsignor in this recent funeral deal, on the other hand, is too full of himself. Does the word "hubris" mean anything to you? Well, he's got it bad and I'm afraid he's gonna get it. He wouldn't let me become St. Michael the Heretic, which demonstrated his rigid, jack-booted Vatican thug mind, so....

I don't take oaths, except on the witness stand or in court and legal stuff. I figger that if I vow (promise) to "do my duty to God and my country, be square, and obey the law of the pack" (for example) and I break it, how can I be trusted to keep one like "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution..." or to love someone until death do us part or to stop drinking or pledge allegiance to the flag? Either I keep my word or I don't and if I don't at least karma will get me later. And while we're on the subject of promises and karma -- Amos, you still owe me fifty bucks from that poker game in the Peace Cabin last Getaway. You can either donate it to the Fund for Pimps, Prostitutes, Pushers, Politicians, and Other Riff-Raff Beginnin With the Letter P (the FPPPPORRBWP) or all of your guitar string will break at the same time and the stores will all be closed and the only replacement strings available will be cotton string.

Oh, Rapparree, oh Rapparree Again with truth you make too free By making up wild tales and stories Reflecting just your former glories. Why don't you give your main a trim And dedicate yourself to Him Who is the Fountain of All Youth And may direct you to the truth? But if you cannot bear a sect Then Jaysus--at least self correct! And take your falsehoods by the scruff (For you have vented quite enough!). And just to set the record straight I sang and sang 'til very late And never played a hand of poker. This pack has shown its only Joker. Go forth, repent, and do not wait! And draw yourself a truthful straight.

No, I was dealing off the bottom using a shiner with stacked marked cards and sixteen extra aces up my sleeves means you didn't play a single hand of poker -- or at least you didn't have a chance of winning one.

Wanna play some poker? I'll even let you cut the cards, hehehehe. 5 card draw, straight poker, five or seven card stud...anything but that stupid Texas Hold 'em. Maybe Rodeo Poker, where we sit at a table in the arena playing cards during a bull ride. Or some faro? No monte, you'd cheat.

My MIL was buried this morning in Arlington National Cemetery in a simple ceremony. The chaplain's words were lost in the sounds of jets from National Airport and helicopters from the Pentagon, but she now belongs to The Ages.

Cleaning up after her belongs to us. The 16 shopping bags of shredded paper that has been taken to recycle and the 1,300+ pennies I've sorted are just the tip of the iceberg. There are clothes, shoes, purses, papers, kitchen utensils, furniture and a raft of other things to go through before this is over and the apartment can be released for sale.

Seriously though, we're leaving on the 28th for "centering" for Pat and bill-paying for me and will return on the 5th. On the 7th, two friends from the Chicago are fly in and while one has to return on the 13th the other can stay well past that -- and SHE'S a professor emeritus of law and should be VERY helpful in dealing with the p***k who we understand is in charge of releasing the "deposit" monies.

I would not like to be on the receiving end if both Pat and Mary work him over. He will end up a eunuch, possibly literally.

We've made some good headway on the clothing and things already...and found 11 photocopies of the Last and Latest Will as well as originals.

Amos, please feel free to come out and inventory the blank religious greeting cards, the scapulars, the medals, the rosaries.... I'll buy you a beer if do.

Oh, these are the rosaries sent by various religious groups, like the Discalcined Oblate Passionistas of the Figure Divine and the Little Immaculate Friars of the Missionary Society of St. Dismas. These include, but are not limited to, rosaries imprinted on plastic cards, single decade rosaries in the shape of a ring with a cross ("Mirror of Venus"), and other varieties.

One rosary was buried in her hands. The other ones that have family value have been kept.

My great aunt Josephine had the same rosaries you're talking about - sent as a token by every Catholic charitable organization in hopes she'd send real money as thanks for the cheap plastic beads. We had a bag with several pounds of them, as I recall. And other pieces of brik-a-brac sent by the same groups. I wasn't able to keep all of the interesting stuff from her house (amounting to the family history because the past possessions of many family members were stored there), I had to talk cousins in to holding onto things and explaining that sets should be kept together to have more value. I hate to contemplate how unequipped I was to handle her estate. . . good luck with the financial end, that bit can tear families apart.

Settling an estate is quite difficult enough without adding in all the arbitraries and foofaraws and furbelows of a life-long connection to the Catholic hierarchical machine. Just imagine how much clearer things would be without all that deliberate obfuscation thrown in!